As this is MPSIMS, I feel the need to share with you all.
A couple of weeks ago, I won an eBay auction for tickets to a baseball game. The person holding the auction was a season ticket holder, and could not go to this particular game.
The game was taking place the day after I won the tickets, and I didn’t feel comfortable trusting them to next-day mail since other people were also relying on me for those tickets. So I made arrangements with the owner of the tickets to pick them up from him.
He had asked me to give him a call on his cell phone when I got in the area. It turns out that he was still at work, and he had arranged for his mother to be at home to give me the tickets. So I’m talking to him on my cell phone while he’s directing me through his apartment complex to the correct apartment. I arrive at his door, and he tells me to go ahead an knock, which I do.
I am then greeted by an elderly woman, who grunts, nods, and hands me something. I thank her and start to walk off. As I’m in the process of thanking and saying goodbye to the gentleman on the phone, I start examining what I have in my hands. Turns out that his mother hadn’t just handed me the tickets to the game I was going to – she’d given me his entire book of season tickets! I’ve since estimated its value at just under $4,000 (winning the auction had cost me $45).
Now, I’m not a dishonest person, really, and I figure that he likely could have tracked me down if I’d walked off with them anyway. But I’d be lying if I said that the thought didn’t cross my mind for a half-second.
At any rate, I managed to croak out “Um…I think your mom made a mistake” to this guy on the phone. After I explained what had happened, I expected him to unleash a string of expletives, which is what I would have done if my mom had given away $4,000 of my money to a stranger. Instead, he just said, “Oh. Well just knock on the door again.” Huh…alrighty then, pal.
So, it all got straightened out, I got the tickets I was supposed to have and returned the remainder of them. My friends and I enjoyed the game, and all was well. But that will always be the 82 Ones That Got Away from me, and I’ll never forget it. At least, not until I become a season-ticket owner myself.
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